Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, May 08, 2011

Abbas trying to convince Hamas to keep Fayyad as PM

According to reports out of the PA, president Mahmoud Abbas is trying to convince Hamas to allow Salam Fayyad to remain as the prime minister of the "transitional" PA government before elections.

Palestine Today quotes London-based Asharq al-Awsat as saying that even though Fayyad was excluded from consideration in talks between Hamas and Fatah, Abbas is still pushing his PM - to placate the Quartet.

In the words of the article:

Sources pointed out that the reassignment of Fayyad to form a transitional government could reduce the insistence of the Europeans and Americans on the government's commitment to the Quartet's conditions, which provides recognition of the occupation [Israel] and a commitment to signed agreements and to renounce the so-called terrorism.

In other words, Abbas understands that Fayyad is what is giving the PA what legitimacy it has from the US, UN and EU, and also that a government that includes Hamas does not meet the minimal requirements of the Quartet. So keeping Fayyad on until September will give the PA enough political cover to claim to the Quartet that Hamas is really not part of the government despite the much heralded unification agreement that makes it very much part of the decision making process.

Abbas is trying to have his cake and eat it, too. Unfortunately, the West (especially the UN) is so heavily invested in the idea of the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state that he may be right - the Quartet might very well look the other way at the distasteful Hamas involvement until it is too late.

Tom Friedman's latest stupidity

From Saturday's Thomas Friedman NYT op-ed:

If you look into the different “shop” windows across the Middle East, it is increasingly apparent that the Arab uprisings are bringing to a close the era of “Middle East Wholesale” and ushering in the era of “Middle East Retail.” Everyone is going to have to pay more for their stability.

Let’s start with Israel. For the last 30 years, Israel enjoyed peace with Egypt wholesale — by having peace with just one man, Hosni Mubarak. That sale is over. Today, post-Mubarak, to sustain the peace treaty with Egypt in any kind of stable manner, Israel is going to have to pay retail. It is going to have to make peace with 85 million Egyptians. The days in which one phone call by Israel to Mubarak could shut down any crisis in relations are over.

Friedman has got to seriously stop thinking that he is God's gift to journalism and wake up from his self-congratulatory coma. Only then can we start to hope that he will clear his brain from years of accumulated flotsam and jetsam and start to see what's really going on.

Mubarak did not do Israel's bidding as Egyptian leader, and neither did Sadat. They did America's bidding. They wanted to continue the scam of being considered "moderate" Arab allies of the US and they wanted to continue to receive billions in aid. But they did nothing that Israel wanted them to do.

The proof, as Friedman well knows but purposefully ignores, is the nature of the peace treaty. For three decades, Israel always tried to normalize relations with Egypt, and Egypt always did everything it could to maintain the coldest peace possible. Israeli tourists went to Egypt, Israel tried to do cultural exchanges, Israel pushed for closer economic and scientific ties. Only when the US pressured Egypt did the Egyptian leadership agree, and that didn't happen often.

Now Friedman says that it is Israel that has to try harder?

It gets worse:

Amr Moussa, the outgoing head of the Arab League and the front-runner in polls to succeed Mubarak as president when Egypt holds elections in November, just made that clear in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. Regarding Israel, Moussa said: “Mubarak had a certain policy. It was his own policy, and I don’t think we have to follow this. We want to be a friend of Israel, but it has to have two parties. It is not on Egypt to be a friend. Israel has to be a friend, too.”

Moussa owes a great deal of his popularity in Egypt to his tough approach to Israel. I hope he has a broader vision. It is noteworthy that in the decade he led the Arab League, he spent a great deal of time jousting with Israel and did virtually nothing to either highlight or deal with the conclusions of the 2002 U.N. Arab Human Development Report — produced by a group of Arab scholars led by an Egyptian — that said the Arab people are suffering from three huge deficits: a deficit of freedom, a deficit of knowledge and deficit of women’s empowerment.

The current Israeli government, however, shows little sign of being prepared for peace retail.

After Friedman points out that Amr Moussa is an anti-Israel deologue, Friedman again says that this means that Israel has to try harder! Even though, he himself acknowledges, that Moussa built his career on demonizing Israel.

Friedman later writes:

Alas, though, the main strategy of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas will be to drag Israel into the Arab story — as a way of deflecting attention away from how these anti-democratic regimes are repressing their own people and to further delegitimize Israel...

Yet only two paragraphs earlier, Friedman admitted that Amr Moussa does the exact same thing!

So the likely new Egyptian leadership is no more likely to avoid using Israel as a scapegoat to deflect its own problems than the old one, and it is already showing signs of acting the way that Friedman notes that Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran act.

All these facts are in this very column, yet Friedman cannot connect the dots which add up to:

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

To Friedman, this doesn't mean that the US must redouble its efforts to turn the so-called Arab Spring into a real chance for true freedom and democracy, of governments that are mature enough to face their real problems transparently and tackle them. Not at all. To him, Arab governments acting like teenage bullies must be met with more Israeli concessions, more pandering to the dictators, more effort to please those who cannot ever be pleased.

Three days in a row of inane, idiotic New York Times articles - and I don't even read the paper.

Thanks, David G, for sending me this trash, knowing I cannot resist responding :)

Reports: Assad's wife, kids fled to London

Palestine Press Agency reports:

According to Arab diplomatic sources in Britain, the wife of the Syrian President, Asma Assad, fled from Damascus to London together with her three children about two weeks ago in the face of the expansion of the protests against her husband's regime.

Meanwhile, the death toll in Syria has now topped 800.

Maybe she'll get another Vogue interview there.

Muslims attack church in Egypt, 6 killed

From CNN:

Six people were killed and 120 injured in sectarian clashes outside a church in Cairo on Saturday, officials said.

An angry group of Muslim Salafists attacked the Saint Mena Coptic Orthodox Church. They were upset over reports of a woman being held against her will after allegedly converting to Islam.

"With my own eyes I saw three people killed and dozens injured," said Mina Adel, a Christian resident. "There's no security here. There's a big problem. People attacked us, and we have to protect ourselves."

Egyptian Interior Ministry spokesman Alla Mahmoud said in a statement that six people were killed and 120 injured in the violence.

Every news story is headlined with phrases like "six killed in sectarian clashes," but from what I can tell all the six killed were Coptic Christians. More details from Al Jazeera:

Hermina, a parish priest, told AFP news agency that the dead were Copts who died when "thugs and Salafists fired at them" in the late afternoon attack.

The church floor was bloodstained as wounded Christians were brought in for treatment.

Shahira Abu Leil, a blogger and activist, told Al Jazeera that Salafists were not involved in the clashes, and that attempts were being made to bring security to the area.

"A building was also set on fire, and people are trying to prevent a possible explosion from gas leakages," she said.

Is this the wonderful whiff of Arab Spring we smell in the air?

Weekend links

OK, time to post all the stuff that's been accumulating...

Melanie Philips' open letter to David Cameron

CiFWatch: Cowardly in Qatar (I had hoped to blog about this from the perspective of how the Guardian lied about the Palestine Papers, but didn't have time)

Ahmadinejad allies charged with - sorcery!

Just Journalism on media responses to praise for OBL

Mallorca condemns the killing of Marranos - in 1691.

Washington Institute on the Muslim Brotherhood

Did Mosab Youssef, the Hamas "defector" who converted to Christianity, dupe all of us?

Corrupting sports in Gaza

The Tony Kushner saga here and here.

Hypocrisy in Norway on Yassin and OBL

Intel Israel will manufacture the latest high-speed microprocessor that BDS opponents will not boycott

Daphne Anson on Norway's attempt to ban Brit Milah (if I translate it, all the anti-brit Googlers will descend here and take over the comment section.) Suffice it to say that they still aren't interested in banning child ear mutilation - because making a baby look cute with earrings is more important than a major religious obligation.

(h/t O., Joel, Silke, Zvi, and others I missed, sorry)

Kuwaiti woman fantasizes about being Mrs. Bin Laden

Islamist soft-core porn, translated by MEMRI.

In her May 4, 2011 column in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas, Khuloud 'Abdallah Al-Khamis described how she had always dreamed of being the wife of Osama bin Laden.

Following are excerpts from her column:

"What would life be like at his side? How frequently I ask that question of [my reflection] in the mirror, as I imagine him and imagine that my smile is for him alone.

"When a woman claims that she beautifies herself for herself alone, she is lying, because behind every mirror is the shadow of the man to whom she dreams of giving all the beauty in the world when she appears in front of him. Osama [bin Laden] was that shadow behind my mirror; [in my mind] he would arrive at dawn, secretly, from Tora Bora, covering great distances to be with a woman who dreamed of him as her husband."

"So many times, my heart has tempted me to go towards his cave and to take the empty seat among the wives of the Caliph [i.e. bin Laden] – and when my night would arrive, I would get to wash his awe-inspiring beard, dirtied by the dust through which he crawled all night long. Is it conceivable that a jihad fighter's bed would be a bed of down and brocade velvet?

"I dreamed of being Osama's companion there, where the utmost danger lurks, so I could clasp his galabiya, stained with the blood of martyrdom, to my bosom, so I could be his companion as he [counted] the burdensome seconds, waiting to join the convoy of [his martyred] comrades and friends...

"Osama, the knight who dismounted from the horse of worldly pleasure, donned a [cleric's] turban, gripped a Kalashnikov, and entered the tunnel from which there is no return. From there I saw his stature reach to the heavens, as he recruited the knights in response to the voices of the women of Islam, whose honor has been violated and whose strength is gone, and who cry out [to him], 'Osama!'...

"How would life be with a husband who does not weaken at the sight of a woman's tears? What would a day be like in the life of an ordinary woman married to a man who never strays from the straight path and always receives God's grace, a man with no [fixed] schedule of coming and going, sitting and standing, eating lunch or dinner, when his wife never knows how long he will stay?

"What is morning like with a man who never sleeps? How could she threaten to leave him when he does not fear this? How could she seek pleasure in his arms him when pleasure is not in his vocabulary?

"How can a woman wish on herself a husband who never knows fear, never grows bored, never tires, and loves none but Allah? What weak spot would she [exploit], since he cannot be tempted? How could I be Osama's wife and pluck the strings of his desire for me.... when he desires only the virgins [of Paradise] – to whom mortal women can never measure up? Why does he stay with any woman when he has already divorced this world?

"Can we understand Osama like we understand [other] men? Or perhaps he has overturned the meaning of masculinity, so that after him, [all] men are but hollow bodies, and our definition of 'men' is changed so that it is no longer what it was before him?"

"[Here] in the dust of males who leave no impression, I had forgotten how a woman's soul yearns only for a man of steady loyalty [and] belief, a victor, a knight who dismounts only for something loftier. [I had forgotten] how a woman's soul, with all its guile and seductiveness, dreams of a man who will never be affected by her character, who will take her under the [shelter] of his rib, whence she was first created... of his mercies.

"Thank you [Osama], for making me dream of you as a husband. I tell you that we shall follow your will and testament, but seated as a strong base [Arabic pun on Al Qaeda] – because where we find the will to stand after you have gone?

"Oh, Osama... even if I did not have the honor of belonging to your family in this world, I promise I that will see you there [in the next world]...

"Farewell, dream husband for whom I wait."

Can the Arabic romance novels be far behind?

Apologies for the truly crappy Photoshop

UK "Palestine" Embassy website wipes Israel off the map

From the Palestine Embassy UK website:

This is an interactive map where you can zoom in on different districts in "Palestine" - which as in Israel.

But I thought that the PLO recognized Israel! I guess it was just another semantic game.

Hilariously, here is the link to get to this page:

The photo shown is from the city of Palestine, Illinois!

I suppose that one cannot blame the Palestinian Arabs for not knowing the history of their country. It is tough to keep track of the history of something that never existed.

(h/t JSS)

Outrageous: UK Methodist Church document to delegitimize Israel

A background document released by the Methodist Church of the UK is meant to instruct its readers on "Jewish and Muslim Perspectives on the Land of Israel-Palestine" - and, inter alia, to show how to argue with the Jewish claims for a homeland.

First, it looks at covenantal, Biblical claims:

In the Jewish tradition, robust debate is possible about texts and their meaning. In the rabbinical tradition, every word of a text can be challenged. Multiple meanings are sometimes accepted. In connection with attitudes to the 'land' of Israel, some Jews are also aware that holy texts can be abused. ‘We have a battle for our holy texts' declared Rabbi David Rosen, of Rabbis for Human Rights in Jerusalem, at a session on theologies of the ‘Land' at the Parliament of World's Religions in Barcelona in 2004.

For example, Jews who seek justice for all - Jews and Palestinians - will draw strength from the Covenant with Noah in Genesis (Genesis 9: 8 - 17). It is a Covenant which makes no distinction between nations or races. Other Jewish groups look to ‘later' Covenants, which can be interpreted more exclusively. This intrareligious dialogue within Judaism must not be overlooked.

Anyone with a modicum of understanding about Judaism knows about rabbinic arguments on interpretation of verses.

They also know that such arguments have specific rules and boundaries, as would be the source texts of any legal system. To facilely declare that God's promise to all of mankind not to destroy the world with a flood is somehow more relevant to Israel than specific Biblical promises to the Patriarchs and the children of Israel is more than absurd - especially coming from an organization that should be somewhat familiar with the Bible.

But this is far from the most offensive part of the document.

Anti-Semitism in Europe, culminating in the Holocaust, is another factor that cannot
be overlooked if Christians are to understand Jewish perspectives on the land of Israel. ‘Israel is the only real answer to the Holocaust' is the message given at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Centre in west Jerusalem. Its location (on Mount Herzl, a hill which is home both to the tomb of the founding father of the Zionist Movement and the central military cemetery for members of the Israeli Defence Force) and its symbolic layout undergirds this message. A pilgrimage through the exhibition rooms of the Centre, which bring home both the horror of the Holocaust and the vigour of Jewish resistance, brings you out in the open air, overlooking the beauty of Jerusalem. This perspective is transmitted to young Israelis through visits to Yad Vashem organised by schools and other groups. When I visited the Centre with a group from Britain, I noticed that many visitors were not of European Jewish descent. As Michael Ipgrave, then Secretary of the Churches' Commission for Inter Faith Relations, wrote in his report of the visit: ‘The Holocaust has come to serve as a national story embracing also Oriental Jews for whom this was not part of their family history.' Peace groups in Israel have to work against this backdrop.

...It is salutary and necessary for Europeans, and particularly Christians, to realise that they are implicated in this narrative.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Wiesenthal Center slammed this in the Huffington Post:

One of its authors chastises Yad Vashem, Jerusalem's Holocaust museum: "'Israel is the only real answer to the Holocaust' is the message ... This perspective is transmitted to young Israelis through visits to Yad Vashem organised by schools and other groups. When I visited the Centre ... I noticed that many visitors were not of European Jewish descent. As Michael Ipgrave, then Secretary of the Churches' Commission for Inter Faith Relations, wrote in his report of the visit: 'The Holocaust has come to serve as a national story embracing also Oriental Jews for whom this was not part of their family history.' Peace groups in Israel have to work against this backdrop."

Want peace? Decouple Israel from the Holocaust. Curiously, the Methodists' narrative goes beyond Palestinian chutzpah, whose historic revisionism ignores three millennia of continuous Jewish presence in the Holy Land, and insists that the Allies manufactured the State of Israel to provide a home for survivors of the WWII Holocaust that these Methodists now want Jews to forget.

Want peace? Forget the collective memory of losing a third of your people, including 1.5 million children. For it's the "collective memory of the Holocaust [that] also feeds into an ethos of victimhood." Israelis should also turn the other cheek when rockets rain down on their children's school buses; turn a deaf ear when Palestinian imams promise the faithful a day when the rocks will call out to kill the Jews hiding behind them; turn a blind eye when the "moderate" Palestine Authority names streets for martyrs who murdered Israeli civilians; when one third of that same "moderate" population supports the savage butchering of a sleeping Israeli family in Itamar, including the all-but beheading of a 3-month-old baby.

Forget collective memory. For these religious leaders, only selective memory will set you free:

Take their reference to "Oriental" -- meaning Sephardic -- Jews. These experts must have forgotten the Sephardic Jews of Greece, 87 percent of whom were murdered by the Nazis. Never mind the Jews of the Maghreb were on Hitler's hit-list. These leaders also remembered to forget that it was Christian countries who slammed their gates shut before desperate European Jews, and that millions could have been saved had there been a State of Israel in the 1930s and 40s.

A couple of points beyond what Cooper said specifically about the Sephardim.

One is that there was a massacre of Jews in Iraq - the Farhud - during the Holocaust that was inspired by the infamous, Nazi sympathizing Mufti of Jerusalem. Here is a direct link between Arab anti-semitism and the Holocaust for Sephardic Jews.

But in a broader sense, the outrage that the Methodists feel about how Sephardic Jews are being taught about the Holocaust betrays their own anti-semitism. By mentioning it, the authors indicate that they do not believe that the Jewish people are a nation - the Sephardim, to them, have nothing in common with Jews who lived in some European countries. It is beyond their comprehension that Sephardim might actually care about their fellow Jews on their own, without being indoctrinated by the Zionists!

Even more so, they warn that Israel's Holocaust "narrative" is a direct challenge to them, as it implicates European Christians for standing by and letting millions of Jews get slaughtered. Which just happens to be true.

The point, of course, was to give the Methodists ammunition to argue against both Biblical and Holocaust arguments to justify a Jewish state.

Moreover, their recounting of Muslim narratives shows no skepticism. For example, it quotes the Koran as saying that Mohammed's night journey was to Jerusalem - even though the location of that journey is in a hadith, not the Koran.

This is a sickening document, and one that needs to be exposed.

UPDATE: The document was taken down...so you can find it here.

Why American Jews should not be embarrassed by Israel (Hazony)

From The Forward, by David Hazony:

Whenever I visit the United States, I spend a lot of time with people who strongly support Israel. But I’m always stunned by how poorly they understand the country. They talk about terrorism, Bibi and Tzipi, or the latest ex-general they met at a fundraising dinner. But when it comes to culture and daily life, they draw a blank. For all their cosmopolitanism, they know little or no Hebrew — cutting themselves off from the most vibrant Jewish experiences happening today.

Israel is not a football team that you can follow when you have time, ignore when you don’t and always root for. It’s a whole country, a whole world. It has its own literature, music, sports, films, reality shows and TV dramas and documentaries, many of which would make American Jews fill with pride, angst, laughter or criticism if they only knew about them. And yes, Israel has war and politics and existential threats. But to focus exclusively on these is never to understand what it’s like to be Israeli.

Israel has been through hell, and this experience informs its wisdom. Like any other country, it has its successes and failures. But its imperfections should not be a “source of embarrassment” for American Jews, who, after all, have their own grievous failings, as well.

Read the whole thing.

"Moderate" Hamas leader: Muslims are human, Jews aren't

Ma'an reports that Khaled Meshal, the "political" leader of Hamas based in Damascus who many are now arguing must be embraced by Israel, has condemned how the US killed Osama Bin Laden:

Khalid Mash'al, head of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, on Thursday criticized the method used by US special forces to kill Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and his "burial at sea."

Mash'al called on the West to "recognize the atrocity of the American raid and the burial of (bin Laden's body) at sea," in remarks to AFP in the Egyptian capital.

"Arabs and Muslims are human beings and the West should treat them as such, regardless of whether they are partisans or opponents of Osama bin Laden."

According to Meshal, Bin Laden - despite any faults he might have had - was, above all, a human being and must be treated as such.

Compare this with how he characterized a the terror ambush last September that murdered four Jewish civilians, including a pregnant woman:

On the first day these negotiations were announced, Hamas fighters killed four people in Hebron. Were you trying to send a message?

No. This was not based on giving a message against the negotiations. It was expressing a reality. There is an illegal occupation and there are illegal settlements. And the Israeli soldiers and the Israeli settlers who are armed are attacking Palestinians. [They are] attacking Palestinian people, the olive trees, the children, the women. Therefore the Palestinians have the right to defend themselves. Not every resistance action is connected to the negotiations. This is connected to reality. It’s very clear, not every resistance is sending a message.

Apparently, Osama Bin Laden deserves to be treated with respect because he was a Muslim and Muslims are human beings. Killing him was an "atrocity."

Jews who want to live in the land of their ancestors, however, deserve to be brutally murdered. That's just reality.

I guess he doesn't consider them human beings.

Poor Madonna: Kabbalah Center under tax probe

From the LA Times:

The Kabbalah Centre, the Los Angeles-based spiritual organization that mingles ancient Jewish mysticism with the glamour of its celebrity devotees, is the focus of a federal tax evasion investigation probing, among other things, the finances of two charities connected to Madonna, the center's most famous adherent.

Sources familiar with the investigation said the criminal division of the IRS is looking into whether nonprofit funds were used for the personal enrichment of the Berg family, which has controlled the Kabbalah Centre for more than four decades, a period in which it expanded from one school of a little-known strain of Judaism to a global brand with A-list followers like Ashton Kutcher and Gwyneth Paltrow and assets that may top $260 million.

Among the items that investigators have reviewed, according to one source, is an August 2010 email in which a former chief financial officer of the center complained that he had been fired for pointing out financial improprieties and warned that the center was in danger of "committing suicide."

"I recently uncovered instances of income tax fraud at the Kabbalah Centre — instances which could bankrupt several of the directors involved … this is very serious business," the former CFO, Nicholas Vakkur, wrote in an email that circulated among high-level officials at the center. "I have little choice but to cooperate with the IRS and bring down the entire Kabbalah Centre," Vakkur wrote, adding a plea that "someone in authority" try to "reason" with center Chief Executive Karen Berg.

The EoZ archives has a 2005 article from the BBC about the Kabbalah Center that was even more damning.

A bit of nonsense in a NYT op-ed

The New York Times' jihad to mainstream Hamas continues today, with an op-ed by Nathan Thrall called "Hurting Moderates, Helping Militants." Guess who the "moderates" are?

In Gaza, the number of Salafi jihadis — austere militants willing to kill those they don’t consider true Muslims — has grown significantly since 2006. Many of them are former Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters who see Hamas as caving to Israel while getting only blockades, closed border crossings and military incursions in return.

Five years of isolation have not dislodged Hamas, revived the peace process, strengthened Fatah or ensured Israel’s security. Most of the Gaza Strip’s imports now pass largely unimpeded through tunnels that are wide enough to carry cattle, cars, anti-tank missiles and foreign radicals.

Nor has isolating Hamas persuaded most Palestinians to embrace the alternative model in the West Bank, where undemocratic practices remain common, local leaders lack popular legitimacy, and tight security coordination with Israel is routinely denounced.

Instead, blockading Gaza and isolating Hamas have given rhetorical strength to militants who argue that the Islamist movement has erred by holding its fire against Israel and failing to impose Islamic law. As a result, Hamas is slowly losing members to more radical groups.

On Monday, Hamas self-defeatingly sought to bolster its flagging Islamist credentials by mourning the death of Osama bin Laden and praising him as an Arab holy warrior ...

Here's Thrall's bizarre train of thought: Hamas is losing members to more-extreme Salafist groups because it is viewed as not being radical enough by some.

So, according to Thrall, Israel must embrace Hamas, which would moderate its views to accommodate Israel's new friendship.

But according to his own words, this would make more radicals leave the group and strengthen the Salafists because they would look at Hamas as selling out!

On the one hand he is claiming that extreme radical Islamists are pushed there by the relative moderation of slightly less extreme radical Islamists. On the other hand he claims that by Israel embracing the slightly less extreme radical Islamists they will moderate and make peace with - which will again push their members towards extremism!

Thrall also fails to explain why (as he admits) even Islamic Jihad is losing members to the Salafist groups - when Islamic Jihad has not moderated one bit.

Not to mention his equally nonsensical assertion that the entire reason Hamas condemned Bin Laden's death was not because of its clear ideological affinity to Al Qaeda, but as a way to restore street cred among the Salafists.

This is, again, a willful blindness on the part of people who are so wed to the idea that peace with Hamas must be possible that logic and facts go out the window just to prove the unprovable. People to whom the "peace process" is a religion cannot lose their faith, so they must spin more and more crazy theories just to shore up their "flat Earth"-style beliefs.

Sorry. The earth is round, Obama was born in Hawaii, 9/11 wasn't an inside job and real peace between Israel and Islamic movements like Hamas is impossible. Hamas and other Islamist movements must be defeated, not embraced. While victory is difficult, as in any war, it is imperative.

Anyone who claims otherwise is simply ignoring reality and discarding facts for half-baked beliefs.

(h/t David G)

Wave your Flag - Israel Independence Day video

Great video (single tracking shot) by Aish.com:

Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's Independence Day, is on May 10th this year.

(h/t Joel)

NYT's Ethan Bronner: When wishful thinking trumps facts

Ethan Bronner in the New York Times has a scoop!

One day after celebrating a landmark reconciliation accord for Palestinian unity, Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader, said on Thursday that he was fully committed to working for a two-state solution but declined to swear off violence or agree that a Palestinian state would produce an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

So what were Meshal's exact words?

Here is everything he is quoted as having said on the topic:

"The whole world knows what Hamas thinks and what our principles are. But we are talking now about a common national agenda. The world should deal with what we are working toward now, the national political program.

"[This is] a Palestinian state in the 1967 lines with Jerusalem as its capital, without any settlements or settlers, not an inch of land swaps and respecting the right of return [of millions of Palestinian Arab "refugees" to Israel itself.]"

Asked if a deal honoring those principles would produce an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Mr. Meshal said, “I don’t want to talk about that.”

He added: “When Israel made agreements with Egypt and Jordan, no one conditioned it on how Israel should think. The Arabs and the West didn’t ask Israel what it was thinking deep inside. All Palestinians know that 60 years ago they were living on historic Palestine from the river to the sea. It is no secret.”

Did the words "two-state solution" escape his lips? Did he say he was prepared to recognize Israel under any circumstances? Did he even imply that? No - he actually said that he would continue to encourage violence against Israelis:

“Where there is occupation and settlement, there is a right to resistance. Israel is the aggressor. But resistance is a means, not an end.”

He added that over the coming months, as Hamas and Fatah work out their differences, “we are ready to reach an agreement on how to manage resistance.” He noted that Hamas had entered into cease-fires with Israel in the past and that it was ready to do so in the future. There is one in effect right now. But his broad principle, he said, was this: “If occupation ends, resistance ends. If Israel stops firing, we stop firing.”

Asked if he thought nonviolent resistance was a useful approach for the Palestinians, he replied, “Unfortunately, nonviolence doesn’t work against the Israelis.”

So perhaps Bronner, who has been covering the area for a few years now, assumes that Meshal's statement that Hamas would end violence if the "occupation" ends as somehow accepting a two-state solution?

Only one problem. Hamas considers all of Israel "occupied." And you don't even have to look hard to realize this - just Google for the word "Occupied" in the English-language Qassam.ps website, run by Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades.

Here you see that Israel's "occupation" includes Ashkelon, Lod, Ashdod, Netivot - and all of the land "occupied in 1948."

Is Bronner this ignorant, after reporting about Hamas for years, not to know what their keywords are? Is it really possible that he doesn't know how Hamas has been playing this same semantic game for years, including in the pages of the NYT op-ed section? Has he not ever heard these same Hamas leaders saying, explicitly in Arabic, that their goal is to destroy Israel - and they have never abandoned that goal in any language?

It is a scary thought that an evidently bright guy is this clueless about the subject that is supposed to be his area of expertise by now.

But even worse is that nothing Meshal said can be remotely construed even in English as implying that he would accept Israel's right to exist, the very definition of a two-state solution.

The only possibility is that Bronner, like so many other Westerners, is infected with "wishthinkitis," a disease where what you want to hear overrides what people actually say. Those with wishthinkitis have the aural equivalent of rose-colored glasses, where every word uttered - no matter how vile and bigoted - is turned into sunshine and flowers.

Those suffering from this condition lose all ability to think critically, to look at things objectively, and to report things accurately. It apparently never entered Bronner's mind to ask some simple questions of Meshal:

If you get all of your demands for every inch of the territories, would you then support a peace treaty with Israel?
Do you agree, today, with every word in the Hamas Charter? If not, what specifically do you disagree with?
If you do not agree with it, is there any other document that you can point to that describes Hamas' goals and objectives precisely? (Shouldn't be hard because Meshal told Bronner that "the whole world knows what Hamas thinks and what our principles are." Will they be only temporarily subsumed under the PA, or permanently?
Do you still support a single Islamic state stretching from North Africa through the Gulf?
Do you consider Spain to be occupied Muslim land?

These are only some of the real questions that should be asked from someone like Meshal. No matter what he answers, it would be newsworthy - either to Westerners or to his fellow Arabs, or both.

Unfortunately, those with wishthinkitis cannot ask the hard questions, and they cannot follow up double-talk answers with decent followup questions. Because they are so thrilled with what they heard, even if it has no relationship with what was actually said.